The Guardian 31 January, 2007
TV programs worth watching
Sun February 4 — Sat February 10
Following in the footsteps of the great polar explorers, the new series of Planet Earth: Ice Worlds (ABC Sunday 7.30pm) takes cameras into the most remote wildernesses on the planet. With the help of Royal Navy helicopters, the BBC teams capture, from the air, incredible shots of humpback whales feeding, while a dive team films the whales from under the water.
At the end of the Antarctic summer, the sea around the continent freezes and the ice expands, doubling the size of the Antarctic. While all other life flees north, the Emperor penguins are just arriving. For more than nine months, Planet Earth follows these hardy birds as they trek across the sea ice to breed. The high technology time-lapse cameras reveal behaviours new to science, as the colony is transformed into a dynamic, single organism.
In the Arctic, a male polar bear whose ice world is literally melting away beneath him, is shown swimming more than 100 kilometres in search of ice from which to hunt seals. In desperation, he takes on a colony of walruses and — after a battle of giants — comes off the worst. Finally, Planet Earth catches up with two cubs that were filmed emerging from their den at the start of the series. Independent of their mother, they are now facing incredible survival challenges as climate change transforms the planet’s ice worlds.
April 1942 — the first American GIs arrive near Hastings (UK) — their orders are to build an airstrip and a camp on farmland belonging to David Barrett (Keith Barron) who is hostile towards the American commander Captain John Kieffer (Jay Benedict). Kieffer asks Department Chief Superintendant Christopher Foyle (Michael Kitchen) to appease Barrett and to talk to his men about British life. He also invites the locals to a dance at the barracks.
Sgt. Paul Milner (Anthony Howell) is devastated when Will Grayson (Sam Hazeldine) who had saved his life at Trondheim and who is home on leave is killed in a fire after drinking with Milner at the Wheat Sheaf hotel.
Thus begins the new series of Foyle’s War (ABC Sunday 8.30pm).
Omega 3 is being marketed as the wonder drug for modern living and the claimed achievements of it are remarkable, with many scientists conducting studies to try to determine the full extent of the benefits attributed to Omega 3. Some say it can make your hair shine, save you from a heart attack, improve your memory and make your children high achievers in school. The claimed achievements of Omega 3 fish oils are remarkable, and they are becoming big business.
In Can Fish Make My Child Smart? (SBS Tuesday 7.30pm), several scientists who have conducted experiments with Omega 3 are interviewed. They include psychologist Dr Madeleine Portwood from Durham LEA who studied children and the effects of Omega 3 on their intellectual development, Tom Sanders, head of Nutritional Research at Kings College, London, who plays the devil’s advocate maintaining that the studies are inconclusive, and Professor John Stein who studied under Hugh Sinclair, one of the first people to study the properties of Omega 3, using himself as a guinea pig.
The story of the movie Vodka Lemon (SBS Wednesday 1pm) is set in a snow-covered Armenian village where there is little money and even less hope. To make ends meet, villagers either sell off their meagre possessions or, in the case of one talented young piano player Zine (Ruzanne Mesropian), their bodies. Hamo (Romik Avinian), an elderly widower, takes the bus to his wife’s grave every day. Nina (Lala Sarkissian), a saleswoman who works at the Vodka Lemon roadside shop, takes the same bus as Hamo to wipe snow from her husband’s headstone.
Though to begin with they are strangers to one another, furtive glances, a shared grief, and the sound of their bus driver singing tortured love songs, conspires to bring them together. Directed by Hiner Saleem, this film received the San Marco Prize at the 2003 Venice Film Festival.
In Raul The Terrible (SBS Thursday 8.30pm) we meet Raul Castells who was born in Che Guevara’s village and admires Che’s convictions. In 2006, Castells opened a community kitchen to feed the city’s poor, in the centre of Puerto Madero, the most affluent area in Buenos Aires. Local restaurant owners and patrons were non-plussed. Raul is a walking, talking, pushing, barging force of nature. Directed by David Bradbury, this film provides a portrait of a man driven to change his world. The program is also an insight into the politics of poverty in 21st century Argentina.
In The Brides Of Khan (SBS Friday 3.30pm) we meet Alan Khan who migrated to Australia from Bangladesh in the 1970s. He came to Australia to get a pilot’s licence and stayed to become the king of Sydney’s wedding photographers. Alan is charming, egotistical, charismatic and a cutthroat businessman. He starts offering his services for $4,000 but some clients leave the studio paying $20,000. What does Alan give them that is worth that kind of money? He promises that for one glorious day they will be film stars.
For nearly 50,000 years, dances and songs have been an expression of Pacific Islanders’ origins, journey, struggles and their very existence. Today, Pacific Islanders are struggling to maintain their identity and traditions. Dance is central to these efforts and for centuries it has remained one of the most powerful vehicles for transmitting culture. Masterpiece On Saturday: Dances Of Life (SBS Saturday 1pm) tells their "dance stories", visiting islands in the Pacific Ocean such as New Zealand, New Caledonia, Palau, American Samoa and Chamorro.
From the Taj Mahal to the Statue of Liberty, the Parthenon to the Great Wall of China, historian and TV presenter Dan Cruickshank embarks on a monumental challenge — to journey non-stop across the globe in search of the most significant man-made treasures on the planet in this new series Around The World In Eighty Treasures: Episode one — Peru To Brazil (ABC Saturday 7.30pm).
Intimate and engaging, this series sees Cruickshank chart the rise and fall of many of the world’s great civilisations, creating a unique picture of humankind, and celebrating the world as a diverse treasure house of art and ancient artefacts.
Travelling on an epic round-the-world trip to 40 countries Dan risks life and limb to reach and showcase some of our most remote and revered treasures. From the castles of Japan to the Nazca lines in Peru, from Persepolis in Iran to the Sydney Opera House, this is a rare chance to share Dan’s wonderment at the sheer majesty and beauty of humankind’s creative powers.